


Beyond Boys

by downjune



Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Erik Killmonger Lives, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-13 22:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20181661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downjune/pseuds/downjune
Summary: “I still want the Winter Soldier on my kill list,” he said and bared his teeth. His “list” was clearly visible on both his bare arms.“Yeah, but you’re not a Nazi with an electric chair to fry my memories, so.” A smile twitched in the corners of Bucky's mouth. “This is still a real good day for me.”





	Beyond Boys

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seinmit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seinmit/gifts).

> Thanks for running this exchange, seinmit! And for having such good prompts!! (Bucky/Killmonger?? What a dreamteam!)
> 
> The line from the summery is inspired by a tumblr post about Bucky having a grand old time in CW because whatever he's doing, it's better than being tortured by Nazis. I can't find it to link it, but if anyone has it, I'd love to put it here.

/We are beings of breath  
beyond the beings of boys/  
~Saul Williams

They didn’t thaw him out until after, and Bucky couldn’t say he was sorry for the respite. The king could have used him in defense of his crown, because that’s what Bucky was made for—keeping power for somebody or seizing it—but when he’d asked, Shuri had said it hadn’t been his fight. T’Challa didn’t have the right to press him into service.

Bucky thought that, given everything the royal family had done for him, the least he could do was be a gun again, for them, against a threat like Killmonger. Erik Stevens was another version of Bucky. Bucky would have been useful against him.

Still, waking up to the aftermath of his brief and bloody reign, Bucky was relieved to have missed it—perhaps shamefully so. But he already had plenty to be ashamed of. Throwing this on the pile didn’t add much weight.

Finding Stevens in the very same medical facility, propped up in bed, reading a battered copy of Malcolm X’s autobiography, Bucky almost smiled. Almost. The king’s faith in people who’d tried to kill him was bound to get him in trouble sooner or later. It might not be Bucky’s place to prevent that. T’Challa’s decisions were his own, and they were binding. He was king, after all. But neither could he stand by and watch it happen again, not when he’d missed it the last time.

Drawing in a slow breath, Bucky tapped his knuckles against the door frame. Stevens frowned at his book before he closed it with a finger to keep his place and looked up to meet Bucky’s eyes. His face went through an impressive sequence of expressions before settling into a slow smile. It was not an easy smile.

“Oh, man—awkward,” he said. 

“A little,” Bucky agreed.

“I’d ask if you’re here to kill me, but… you don’t look ready to kill.” He glanced from the stump of Bucky’s arm to his slippered feet. They slapped his heels when Bucky walked.

“I don’t do that anymore,” Bucky said. If he told enough people, it might be true one day.

“Not like that, you don’t,” Stevens said, his right eyebrow lifting. He smirked when Bucky flexed his remaining hand, but Bucky didn’t feel any particular need to start a pissing contest over the number of ways he could still murder somebody with only one arm vs. how Stevens could do it with one working lung. 

When Bucky didn’t rise to the bait, and the silence stretched, Stevens finally shifted in his bed and shrugged. Resigned acceptance to Bucky’s presence in his space. “So, what’s good, comrade? How’d you end up here—I know my cousin opened the borders, but they’re already takin’ in busted up white-boy assassins? That’s… I don’t know what that is.”

Bucky shrugged in answer and shuffled a few steps farther into the room. “Your cousin is generous to his friends and those he thinks he owes.” He gave Stevens a long look, and Stevens scoffed then winced, wrapping an arm across his middle. 

“You wanna call it that, go ‘head.”

“He could have let you die. What would you call it?”

Stevens’s eyes narrowed. “Where were you when it all went down? What the fuck would you know?”

“I was on ice for the whole thing. And so were you, after, the way I hear it.” 

Stevens’s whole body twitched at that, a ripple of muscle that looked like a shudder by the time it reached the back of his neck. “Couldn’t decide if they wanted me alive or dead, so they threw me in the freezer to weigh the pros and cons.” The underlying bitterness in his voice rose closer to the surface. T’Challa saving his life was not a gift, it told him. “How long you been awake?” Stevens asked.

“A few days. About as long as you.” Uninvited, Bucky slid a chair away from the wall and pulled it closer to Stevens’s bed. “Long enough to know, now, who you really are. What you want.” He paused before he sat, taking in Stevens’s drawn face, the gray cast beneath his brown skin. “What you wanted.”

Stevens watched Bucky sit down like he was already making a list of reasons to kill him. “And, what, you think everybody around here don’t know you worked for fucking Nazis?”

“Yeah, they know. I’m sure they know I’m sitting here with you right now, too.”

Stevens made another soft sound of disgust. “If this is where you threaten me to stay away from your new owners, save your breath. If you’re Wakanda’s new attack dog, T’Challa’s fucked.”

Bucky shook his head. “I don’t do that anymore. I just thought you might like some company.”

“That’s some bullshit.”

Bucky gave another lopsided shrug. “Then maybe I could use the company. We’re not shooting at each other this time. So that’s nice.”

“I still want the Winter Soldier on my kill list,” he said and bared his teeth. His “list” was clearly visible on both his bare arms.

“Yeah, but you’re not a Nazi with an electric chair to fry my memories, so.” A smile twitched in the corners of Bucky's mouth. “This is still a real good day for me.” He crossed his feet at the ankle and stretched out his legs. 

Stevens stared for another moment at the presumption in his casual posture. “That supposed to make me feel better?” he asked.

“Nope. Just me.” 

He finally barked a laugh at that. It looked like it hurt, but when he tipped his head back against the pillow, Bucky saw a flash of someone else. An echo of charm and humor. 

Bucky felt those from time to time.

Unlike Stevens’s, however, Bucky’s had been burned out of him in his mid-20s by a HYDRA torture machine. Erik Stevens had lost everything before puberty, but he’d become Killmonger of his own free will. So that charm and humor had grown up right alongside the ruthlessness and a will of iron that made Bucky feel a little like pudding in a human exoskeleton.

When Stevens took up the silent treatment again, Bucky tipped his chin toward the book in his lap. “Where’d you get that? I didn’t think they had actual paperbacks around here.”

Stevens opened it to the page he’d been reading. “This is my cousin’s copy, believe it or not. It’s on loan.” He paused, then slid a look at Bucky. “Was he one’a yours?”

Bucky blinked. “Was who one of my what?”

“X. Was that you?”

“Oh, I see.” Bucky smiled flatly. “You’re asking if I assassinated Malcolm X.”

The shrug Stevens gave him said it was a reasonable question. And it was. “You, HYDRA, whatever. I mean, I know who we’re supposed to think did it. It’s always another brother, right?”

“Yeah.” One of the best ways to hamstring a movement. “But, no, that wasn’t me. I’m guessing that was a CIA job, if anything. So, more likely one of yours.”

Another smile flickered across Stevens’s face. “Yeah, probably. Fuck.”

Bucky figured he should say what he’d come here to say and get out of this guy’s face. Leave him to his book. 

“You know, people like us—we were made for one thing. We're always gonna be somebody’s dogs. For the first time in my life, I get to choose whose. Maybe you can, too.”

“You and I are nothing alike,” Stevens said with a snarl, viciousness rearing up in him like he’d just come to the end of his leash. His voice caught too, like the collar was too tight.

Bucky let it roll off him. “You might have had more choice in the path you took than I did, but we’ve both pulled the trigger for the wrong side.” He took a deep breath. “I’m not doing that anymore.”

“Yeah, you keep tellin’ yourself that, _Bucky_,” Stevens spat. Like the very idea of a name like that belonging to a thing like him was ridiculous. As if Bucky hadn't thought the same thing every day since he'd dragged Steve out of the Potomac.

“I will, Erik.” Bucky pushed awkwardly to his feet, weight distribution still weird without his other arm. He still walked out of there of his own free will. So, yeah. It was a good day.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [itstartledme](https://itstartledme.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!


End file.
